The Collett Families of Warren County, Ohio

This distinguished lawyer and Judge was born in Berkeley County, Va. (now West Virginia). November 20, 1781. Having obtained a good English education, he studied law at Martinsburg, in his native county. About the time he reached the age of twenty-one, he emigrated to the Northwest Territory, and stopped temporarily at Cincinnati, where he remained about a year. While he was at Cincinnati, the first constitution of Ohio was adopted and Warren was created a county, with a temporary seat of justice at Lebanon. In June, 1803, before the first court had been held in Warren County, he established himself at Lebanon for the practice of law, and was the first "resident lawyer in the place. Here, it may be said, he commenced the practice of his profession, in which he afterward became distinguished, both at the bar and on the bench. Modest, diffident, unassuming and unpretending, to a degree seldom met with, he had great difficulties to overcome. He traveled the whole of the First Judicial Circuit, comprising the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Clermont, Montgomery, Miami, Greene and Champaign, and was thus brought into competition with the older and distinguished lawyers of Cincinnati and the bar of the whole Miami Circuit. Notwithstanding the embarrassments resulting from his modesty and diffidence, and the learning and eloquence of his competitors, his knowledge of the law and his sound judgment made him a successful practitioner. In 1807, he was appointed Prosecuting Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit, a position he held for ten years, when he was succeeded by his pupil, Thomas Corwin. The diligence, integrity and ability, with which he discharged the duties of this office, made him widely known and universally respected. In 1817, he was elected by the Legislature, President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the term of seven years, and, at the close of his term, was re-elected. He continued on the Common Pleas Bench until 1829, when he was elected by the Legislature a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. His duties as Supreme Judge were onerous; he was compelled to attend courts in distant parts of the State, and to ride on horseback from county to county. At the end of his term, in 1836, he retired to his farm, near Lebanon, where he resided until his death.

After his retirement from the bench, he permitted his name to be placed on the Whig electoral ticket, in 1836, and again in 1840, and, having been elected both times, he twice cast an electoral vote for his friend, Gen. Harrison. He was, for seventeen years, a member of the Board of Trustees of Miami University, and, during all that time manifested an earnest solicitude for the welfare of that institution. He was interested in the cause of education, and held for some time the office of School Examiner in Warren County.

Judge Collett, on emigrating to the West, left in Virginia six brothers and one sister, who, about the year 1812, followed him to Ohio. Their descendants are now numerous in Clinton and Warren Counties. Joshua Collett, in 1808, married Eliza Van Home. William R. Collett, his only son and only child who survived him, was the leading spirit in the organization of the Warren County Agricultural Society. He died on the farm he inherited from his father, July 19, 1860, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

For the last twenty-five years of his life, Judge Collett was a member of the Baptist Church. He was a benevolent and kind-hearted man, and, though an able lawyer and Judge, the crowning glory of his life was his spotless purity, his scrupulous honesty and his unsullied integrity. He died on his farm, near Lebanon May 23, 1855, and was buried at Lebanon. A plain tombstone was erected at the head of his grave, but it is now fallen to the ground, and is broken into several pieces.

As printed in the source². Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.

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Inbe till disgusted with the institution of slavery, they determined to try and find a country and home free from its pernicious effects, and in pursuance of this idea, in 1810, Moses, the eldest son, with his family, emigrated to Ohio and located in Greene County in 1811.

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As printed in the source¹. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.

JAMES C. COLLETT (deceased) was born in England June 12, 1823; was a son of Thomas and Susan (Carpenter) Collett, natives of England, who emigrated to America and located in New Jersey in 1833; thence, in 1837, they came to Warren County and located in Waynesville, where he died Aug. 23, 1851 aged 62 years. Mr. Collett was possessed of a good education and followed teaching as a profession; was an earnest Methodist and a local preacher in that church for many years. He was the father of eleven children; eight grew to maturity; five now survive— Thomas; Emma (now Mrs. Philip Hawke), Amelia (now Mrs. Hammel), Joseph B. and John W. James C. was but a child when they arrived in America, and was raised in New Jersey and Warren Co., Ohio, and grew to manhood, receiving a good common-school education; was married, Feb. 22, 1860, to Ruth Ellen, a daughter of Jonathan and Ruth home

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removed to the farm, where

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Justice of the Peace and would not 1

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As printed in the source¹. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.